


Phantoms in the Mirror

by HandsOfGold



Category: Powerwolf (Band)
Genre: Depression, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Scars, Self-Harm, Sex, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 21:37:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20015179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HandsOfGold/pseuds/HandsOfGold
Summary: Was there something, anything, to save him?





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story serves as an (admittedly unhealthy) coping mechanism. Please read the tags and, if you are triggered by any of them, refrain from reading the story. I would hate to hurt anyone with my personal thoughts and feelings.

He had no idea how he'd ended up in a dirty little bathroom again, away from the post-show-ecstasy of all the others, with a feeling of descending into the deepest depths of feelings that should never be experienced at the speed of light.

All makeup had hastily been wiped away from his face so that streaks of black and white crossed his cheeks that were so hollow that he barely needed the goddamn makeup anymore. His lower arms resting upon the sink he looked into the mirror, not even able to clearly see the outlines of his face in the flickering light of the only unbroken neon light somewhere in the back of the room.

What was he doing here?

He was supposed to be with all the others but the nameless weight had crushed down on his chest again. It was always hovering above it, pressing him down just a little bit so he wouldn't forget it was there, until it would crash down and shatter all his insides so that only numbness would be left until he regenerated.

As he looked into the mirror he saw the eyes of a stranger; so empty and distant they were that he couldn't imagine any force of life behind them, yet he was here, breathing, walking, seeing. Just not feeling. Uncomfortably numb.

He rolled his eyes to test if the stranger in the mirror would follow. It did. He rested his arms on the cool edges of the sink again. The stranger followed. Was it mocking him? This wasn't who he was, this pale body with its hollow eyes and cheeks, too skinny and too weak. Even all the bruises and cuts had assumed a colour that was close to grey. The stranger seemed as if it was vanishing. It wasn't him. A phantom, nothing else.

He lifted his sunken head and stared into the phantom's eyes. It stared back with its soulless glance, coldly mocking and despising him. His teeth clenched. What was it, and what did it want from him? Did it want him to give up? Drive him insane? Grimly he shook his head, choked at his own sob the same second and broke the eye contact because he just couldn't take it anymore. The picture of evil mockery remained in front of his inner eye.

With a quiet, choked scream of desperation he crashed both his fists against the mirror. Lipstick-written telephone numbers, semi-wise sayings and other bathroom drawings shattered into thousands of pieces and took the phantom that was his mirror with them as they went down above him, a rain of shards that fell on him like needles.

In the middle of all these shards he went to the ground, sobbing hysterically. Hateful laughter echoed through his mind, coming from the pile of shards. The skin on his hands was torn, glass stuck in the wounds, blood was dripping and dripping and dripping on the reflecting shards, glowing and steaming and giving them life and dripping and dripping and giving them hate and spite.

"Stop it!" he screamed, high pierced and in desperate, excruciating pain.

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!"

He kept screaming and the laughter kept echoing, laughter about his pathetic appearance, his pathetic situation and his whole pathetic existence and nobody came to stop it.

He could hear the bloody shards whispering his name; full of rage he grabbed a handful of them, ignoring the stings in his hands and tossed them against the walls where they fell to the ground, still laughing at him and that was when he realized that everything was silent around him.

Blood and tears mingled in the sad pile of shards he'd sunken down in the middle of, and the hateful voice was in his own mind and it was right about everything it said and did.

He put his hands before his face, smeared it with blood that burned in his teary eyes. Blindly he grabbed one of the larger shards, pulled up the sleeves of his black, hooded pullover where the fading scars had assumed the dead, gray colour and rammed the shard right into it.

He screamed in pain and it felt good, to take out his rage on the one person who deserved to be treated like this, it felt better than he could ever have imagined to see his body turn into a fountain.

The stabbing wasn't drawing enough blood, this disgustingly colourless appearance needed to be drenched in red just not to vanish. His hand went mechanically, stabbed into the arm and guided the sharp edge through it quickly. His body was exploding in bright light and it felt so goddamn good.

One more cut, just one more, to colour the emptiness, to draw lines and patches of colour onto the ugly, blank canvas and he wondered why it should end there. Eyes still blinded by the pain and the blood he guided the shard over his arm until it found his palm. He didn't even notice he was still begging for something to make it stop.

His hand closed around the shard to make sure it was there, it wandered deeper then, away from his hand towards his wrist. He lingered, but not out of doubt. He wanted to enjoy the pain, to enjoy feeling one last time. He'd made himself feel once again, one last time.

Then he cut through and his scream ceased in a choke as blood exploded from his wrist, pain exploded in front of his eyes, a whiteness that was so bright it took away all his senses and made him unaware of the knocking and the screams from outside that could now, that he was silent, be heard.


	2. 2

An accident. A broken mirror. A stumble. Shards piercing my skin. Falling on my arm. An accident.

It had become a mantra for him, since he'd woken up he'd constantly repeated it until he almost believed in it himself. Tom, their temporal drummer, had been the one to find him and call the ambulance and he'd been gone before the others even noticed. He'd wanted to make them believe his little mantra but even though they never spoke about this incident it was clear that they did not quite believe it.

But it was being kept silent, and silence was what would ultimately kill the memory but not the emptiness within. The phantom in the mirror was still there, the radiant colours had faded into thick white scars that he covered with makeup and long sleeves and nobody talked about them. Maybe they really believed it had been an accident. They hadn't seen the wounds and had been oblivious to the majority of his feelings for the past... what? Ten years? Fifteen years?

However long it had been, there was no way they would notice what he was hiding so carefully now. Still he couldn't endure the pale phantom in the mirror and needed to draw blood in his rage because it was very well justified, because this disgusting creature deserved nothing else than to be reminded of its nature, then to be thrown away and ripped apart and be treated without any care.

It was going well for them and he made it look as if it was going well for him, too. Tom's departure hadn't been as big of a problem as it had seemed and the new guy, Roel, had quickly become not only a band member but a friend. They played and wrote and got drunk together and nobody noticed the weight on his chest because how should they?

Perhaps it had been too many drinks already or perhaps the voices in his head were attacking without a reason. The bar they were in was as dirty as the bathrooms he always ended up in and as dirty as his own body was, and maybe this was why the wanted to drown all of his senses. Or maybe it was the way he looked at Roel, had noticed himself looking at him and could not allow himself to destroy somebody so kind and good.

It was Roel whom he saw himself facing when he barely could sit upright on the barstool anymore. The other one seemed pretty drunk as well already, if not as wasted as he himself, and looked at him, at his bottle, and back at him.

"You've had enough, I think," he said and it sounded like a silent command. Still he shook his head.

"You're odd, you know that? Why are you doing this?" He snorted because if there was any word to innocently describe his person it was odd, but he was odd, and so many more things but above all odd because odd was a collection of many odd things, or wasn't it?

"I'm taking you home now or we'll have to call an ambulance," Roel said, and it was half a joke even though his plan was serious.

"You're not my dude, dad," he muttered into his glass. Roel cocked his head.

"Do I look old enough to be your dad?"

"No, I meant, you're not my dude, dude... dad, dude... whatever I can go home myself. And I will now. Bye." As he slid off his chair his legs gave in under him and he had to hold onto the table until Roel came to his rescue.

"You're not going home alone like this. I wouldn't want the guy who my new job probably depends on to die in the streets at night because he runs... well because he can't walk."

"I can go home!" he protested, completely ignoring the fact that he didn't plan to go to his home at all because a bed and sleep was the last thing he needed right now. At least not his own bed. The bed of someone who'd treat him as he needed and deserved to be treated sounded like a better option. But of course, Roel wouldn't take that and insisted on guiding him out of the bar. He was still holding onto his almost empty bottle tighter than onto the other man.

"Where there fuck are we going that's not my apartment!" he complained.

"No, but do you know where your apartment is?" Roel asked. Touche. He preferred not to reply and not to look at Roel who was probably smiling pitiful at the pathetic guy at his arm while asking himself what the hell he had gotten himself into and he should probably just ignore the feeling of strong arms around him, not think about what these arms could do, what they could hold and break.

He breathed out and dropped his head against Roel's shoulder as the other man made his way towards an apartment complex that was probably the one he lived in during recording. Nice one. Better than a hotel room.

Roel dragged him through the floor without turning on the lights and he was silently grateful that the apartment was at ground level. It was neat and clean, like a hotel room but more... homely. And also bigger. Probably the nicest room he'd been in since he'd moved out.

Roel led him to the couch where he allowed him to sit down as he went into the kitchen to get something to drink. Slightly sobered up by the cold air outside he looked around in the dimly lit room and wished himself far, far away once again. He didn't belong in this neat place with a normal guy whose normal life he was probably about to destroy. Where were the mirrors of this world when you needed them?

"You okay?" the gentle voice of Roel called over to him. He had to bite his tongue. Perhaps the bathroom had a mirror. Then he cursed himself for this thought, because if he scared away another drummer the others would probably stone him in his grave. Roel called his name and waved over to him to secure his attention. He looked at him dumbfounded and while he was working out a reply his thoughts began an independent journey to his tongue.

"Fuck me," he said and didn't even curse himself for say in it because it seemed like the most natural thing to say. He needed somebody to remind him of his existence in this confusion and heck, if it was Roel then it was Roel because he hadn't let him go seek somebody else, right?

"Excuse me?" asked the other man and cocked his head again.

"Just as you heard," he replied.

"You should fuck me right now and usually I don't have to ask that because you can see it."

"The only thing I see is that you're drunker than you should be."

"Then get drunk too," he laughed dryly.

"Who has sober sex, anyways?"

"Everybody... has sober sex?" Roel said but easily caught the bottle he was tossed. He watched the drummer unscrew it and empty it of his contents and didn't even feel anything bad about it because if there was one thing he needed more than alcohol right now it was being put into his place by this man.

"So, will you come now?" he asked impatiently.

"Are you sure?" Roel raised both eyebrows.

"If I'm sure? I sure am because otherwise I wouldn't be doing this, and besides, who the fuck even asks that?"

"Everybody does, I guess?" Roel shrugged but touched his shoulder to guide him towards what was probably the bedroom. He didn't bother turning on the lights.

Before his eyes could grow used to the darkness Roel had already pulled him into his arms and pressed their lips together. He was surprisingly gentle with him still, and he asked himself how experienced the other was. A bit? Not at all? With women? He stiffened and his thoughts ceased as Roel's fingers tugged on his pullover and began pulling them above his head.

"What are you doing?" he whispered despite his vow to never, ever say anything.

"Undressing you," the other said as if he couldn't believe that people would have sex without being completely naked or having their clothes ripped off their bodies.

"Sometimes I think you're a virgin."

He laughed and Roel silenced his laughter with another kiss. He could feel bare skin touching his chest and how the rest of his clothes was taken off him by shockingly gentle hands. Did this man not know how to treat him right?

As Roel's hand wandered down his chest a shiver went through his body and he prepared for strong arms being wrapped around him to turn him, throw him from the soft mattress to the hard ground and the instant pain of rough entry.

Instead the hand wandered over his chest and stomach to his cock and began caressing it. Unwillingly he found himself moaning, filled with a feeling that he'd never experienced before. He could feel a thumb brushing over the head of his cock and cried out softly as a slight wetness spread, overwhelmed by this feeling that ended way too soon.

Roel's arms were wrapped around his middle now and gently assisted him in turning so he lay on his his stomach.

"Get on your knees," he could hear Roel order. His voice was still soft, so soft, did he not know how to treat his bottom? He followed the order nevertheless. At first there was nothing at all, only the sound of a... tube unscrewing? Then he could feel two cold, wet fingers pressing against his back.

They pushed into him without him expecting it and what he felt was not the pain he was used to. Of course these were only fingers and in fear he dared not ask why Roel would do all of this. Why wouldn't he just rip his clothes off, throw him to the floor and push into him until he came to then throw him out onto the street? Why wouldn't Roel know how to put him in his place?

He cried out now as the fingers moved inside of him, a wave of heat flooded through him and his breathing became heavier. For the first time in his life he didn't feel that he needed this, he felt desire and he wanted it. He was sure that his moment of pleasure would come any moment when the fingers suddenly were gone, leaving him to catch some breath.

Then Roel pushed into him, and from all the cocks he'd had inside of him, no matter how small or large, there had never been one so painless that gave him more pleasure. Why was he feeling pleasure, after all? Pleasure wasn't for him, pleasure was for whoever the other was, not for the toy that he was.

But the way Roel moved and moaned filled him with a pleasure that he couldn't describe. Pain was there, yes, but it weren't supernovas of pain in front of his eyes. It was the wave of heat, like warmth for a freezing body, and fireworks in his head. He knew what he felt was wrong, was not for him, but it all faded away as they melted into one.

Along with the other man he moaned while the heat and pleasure increased. Roel's hands were on his heaving shoulders, pushing deeper into him to finally have him come to his climax with a scream that was almost in unison with Roel's. Feeling his come inside of him as he pulled out of him didn't fill him with disgust but with this unnatural feeling of... being complete.

He collapsed on the floor and lay there in silence as Roel pulled him up and onto the mattress, into his arms that wrapped around him as a gentle shelter. He waited for the words of dismissal and the rough push out of the door but it never occurred.

"Don't you want me to leave?" he whispered after while, still in confusion and exhaustion.

"Why would I want you to leave? I think we both sobered up far enough to know we both want you to stay."

He couldn't say a word as Roel's hand ran through his hair and caressed his upper body, his chest and neck, and he rested his head on the drummer's shoulders to come to rest. It was all so wrong, so wrong and yet so right. He felt different than all the other times, wrong indeed, because it wasn't him that should feel fulfilled and exhausted in a good way after sex. He was supposed to be fucked roughly and then thrown away, to be put into his place as a pathetic thing that didn't deserve existence and here he was, held by a man whom he frankly did not deserve because what did he deserve at all?

He could suddenly felt Roel stiffening next to him and sat up quickly as the other man turned on the lamp on his nightstand. He didn't say anything, just grab his hand, and he took a second too long to notice that Roel was staring at his arm, so pale and colourless. He wanted to pull it back but the other's hands were too strong.

"What are you doing?" Roel asked with a raspy voice that did not fit to him at all.

"Don't look," he whispered desperately. There was nothing to embrace, how could he ever have forgotten what he looked like, faded and without life left? Who could take onto him, pathetic creature that he was?

"Don't look. You shouldn't have to see this bastard mirror's deeds." He couldn't even bring himself to fully lie to Roel. He hoped he would believe what the others believed - or not? - and after all, it was indeed the bastard mirror's deed because he was the mirror, that disgusting phantom that hated him and he hated himself for doing this to Roel, for letting him in, for allowing him to get his hands dirty on the dirty creature that he was.

"Don't look," he weakly repeated and then he ran again.


	3. 3

Why?

He kept whispering this word to himself, again and again. Why? Why did he let someone touch him? Why did he let Roel touch him, why did somebody like Roel want to touch him? He didn't know and it made him feel sick.

He kneeled on the cold white tiles of the bathroom floor and watched the blood drip onto them in perfect little drops that would flow away at the instant as if to show him directly how unable he was to do anything well. He would never be from his past, from all the demons it brought. He would never escape the phantom in the mirror that haunted and mocked him even now.

The weight had crashed down stronger than before and left him with a numbness that was so severe it was already painful again. He didn't know why he was kneeling here with a razorblade, if he wanted to feel more pain, feel anything at all or just see the blood to remind him that he was more than the phantom or that he was nothing but the phantom. It hurt unbelievably much. The roof of his house felt like crashing down onto his head and he was running again, through the darkness, across the lawn with bare feet and freezing. Of course he'd returned home, to the tiny empty house that was his by right. And to the woods where he could escape.

\---

It was the middle of the night and Roel didn't even feel sorry for waking his friend from his sleep. Wouldn't have felt sorry for waking his friend from his sleep, he corrected himself as a woman's voice greeted him through the telephone. He could feel shadow that crossed her face when he asked her about the meaning of this mirror.

"It wasn't long ago," she said quietly.

"I wasn't there, I can only repeat what I was told. It was one night on tour, the drummer heard screams from the bathroom, screaming for something to stop..." She swallowed hard to fight her own imagination as she knew how the story would go on.

"He crashed down the locked door and found him there between shards and blood, passed out, his left arm nothing but a bloody mess. He called and ambulance and they saved him, he says he can't recall anything except that the mirror fell and... a lot of pain."

Roel didn't know what to say but he felt that Helen knew his feeling too well. She wished him a good night and hung up and it was only then that he realized something.

They said music and poetry were unique keys to one's soul. Maybe they could help him figure this mystery.

\---

"Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!"

Angrily he repeated the word, over and over again. Autumn had come and time seemed to stand still in the woods with their falling trees. Maybe this was a good place and time to go down after destroying the life and kindness of a person who deserved anything but that. Maybe it was a good place and time to go down after a lifetime of screwing up.

His razorblade was heavy in his hands, it cut through his skin and made the blood mingle with the dirty river water beneath him. Maybe he would fall into the river when it was done, it was deep enough to carry him to the larger streams and into the sea. A good place for worthless, cursed bones to fall to dust. Devoured by fish worth more than he was.

He wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth, back and forth, to soothe himself without calming down the slightest bit. What had he done?

The river below reflected moonlight and the small bit of water in the ground below him reflected the outline of his face, even more vanishing than it had been in front of the cursed mirror in the bathroom, not even a year ago. And where was he now? In no better place than before, having destroyed more than saved. It needed to end today.

He sat up straight but dropped back at the instant, shaken by dry sobs that wouldn't let them out of their terrifying embrace. If he closed his eyes he could see the disgusting, destructive creature that he was, the phantom that didn't deserve anything but pain. Even death was a fate too good for him. He couldn't imagine a hell with enough torment to punish him accordingly. He failed and destroyed everything he touched. He stained pure hearts with his egoistical needs. It needed to end here, tonight.

He allowed the sobs to cool down and strangely found himself very, very calm. The fresh cuts on his arms spread across the ugly white scars and still dripped on the ground from time to time. In all silence, with hands that weren't shaking even a tiny bit, he placed the blade on his collarbone and cut along the bone before repeating it at the other side. He didn't know what he was doing, was out of his senses without noticing. Hysteria had gone over into calmness as he cut again and again.

You deserve nothing else.

This should have happened years ago.

You shouldn't have made it this far.

You shouldn't have let it come this far.

It ends here.

Silent tears flowed down his cheeks and burned in the wounds. The water in the little pond in front of him had grown red. As his hands finally dropped the blade they were shaking again, only a little bit as they pulled out the package of pills he kept with him. It should be enough.

You don't deserve to die in crimson glory.

One by one he pressed the pills out of their package and collected them in his hand. There was nothing he could swallow them with except the blood in his mouth of which he didn't even know where it came from. He sat there quietly, waiting for the sedation to set in and it came, wrapped itself around him like a thick cloud of comfortable numbness and drowned out all his senses. Then he fell.

\---

There was a face, and light, and always this face, only in silhouettes surrounded by the brightest, most beautiful White. The one behind the silhouette seemed to be crying tears of shining pearls and something touched his hand as he was floating through the Nothingness. He couldn't name it, couldn't name anything.

"Stay with me..." it whispered.  
"Don't go, don't go, please don't leave me..."

Even though he could not see it there was the presence of a hand, it reached out for him and he took it, unaware where it would lead him. There were no thoughts, where he was, was only the feeling and that other presence that he followed. To which world it would lead him, if to life or death, he could not tell or think about. He just followed.


	4. 4

If this was only his own pain, how terrible must the other have been? And how could they not have noticed anything during all those years?

Roel was out of his mind, yet abnormally calm He couldn't form a clear thought anymore, they all hovered through his mind for a short time to vanish before he could grasp them. It was early morning and the past hours were a blur of red and black and paleness. He'd arrived just in time. Doctors were working hard to save his friend, again, in the same hospital that had cured him months ago. He hadn't been allowed to come with them so he'd driven there on his own. In retrospective it was sheer luck that he hadn't caused a car crash.

From what he'd heard his friend's situation was incredibly unstable. They'd thrown technical terms around that he didn't understand but seemed vaguely familiar in their nature. It didn't want to get in his mind where he knew them from. The only long, technical terms he usually knew were the ones of medications and he didn't understand why medications would play a role in all the blood.

There was the blood again, all his thoughts seemed to culminate in it. He wasn't one who couldn't see blood, but having a river of it right in front of his eyes had made him feel sick - a sickness that the shock had blended out.

Goddamnit, he thought and rubbed his eyes. Checking the clock he noticed he'd been awake for nearly 24 hours but he couldn't sleep because someone had to be there, anyone, and he didn't know anything about his friend's family. He didn't know if he had siblings, if his parents lived, if he had a girlfriend or a boyfriend, was married or had children. They hadn't know each other for long enough to go into depth concerning each others' private lives.

The ugly hospital neon lights made his eyes tear up with their brightness. First signs of dawn were rising in the horizon. He felt as if dawn would never come, no more sun except the blood red one. Somehow he understood why the session drummer had quit his job. Had this been a mere acquaintance he certainly wouldn't have been able to bear looking into his eyes again, but it was more than an acquaintanceship, so much more even though he didn't know what kind of more.

The clock hands were moving painfully slowly. Surgery was still going on somewhere in there, every now and then there were loud voices to be heard that ceased again after a while. He looked around and didn't know where he was, in this strange town, strange building on a random bench in an unknown floor. It felt wrong. He shouldn't be here.

A minute passed. The thoughts kept circling through his mind without following a train of thought. Two minutes. He got up and walked up and down the floor. Three minutes. His walking turned into restless pacing. Four minutes. Before he could start running he forced himself to slow and settle down. Five minutes. He rested his head in his hands and listened to the silence, dead tired and wide awake.

The distant clock struck six times. Who of the other would get up early? Who of the others would react well? He pulled out his phone. The battery was low. He dialled a number. The beeping at the other end drove him mad but he was too tired to curse it. Shortly before he could hang up a sleepy voice answered the call.

"Did I wake you?" he asked.

"Not really," the voice at the other end answered.

"What's it?"

"We'll have to cancel rehearsal today." No explanation.

"Why?" was the obvious question. What should he say? That he wasn't feeling well? That someone else wasn't feeling well? The truth?

"I'm at the hospital," he said after a phase of hesitation that was just a little too long.

"What happened?" the other asked instantly. There was concern in his voice.

"It's... it's not me." His voice broke. He didn't want to speak about it, not just yet, he wasn't sure how to phrase it, didn't know how to speak about it at all. But the other seemed to understand.

"Is it..." he asked and Roel could feel how the colour drained from his face. He nodded tiredly before he could notice that the other wouldn't hear him through the phone.

"Yes," he said in a quiet tone of voice.

"I'll be there shortly. Where are you?" Roel looked around. He didn't know. The floors all looked the same, white and aseptic without personality, heart or soul.

"I have no idea," he answered truthfully.

"There's a real large tree outside this window. You know what I mean? It says I'm on the third floor. There's an elevator down the corridor."

\---

It took fifteen minutes until Christian was there, sitting next to his sunken figure. Roel could feel a light hand on his shoulder, he hoped to make it clear that he didn't want to talk about it at first, but the pent-up emotions sought to unload and so it wasn't long until he began speaking. His voice was broken but somehow distant, emotionless.

"We ended up in the same bar sometime last night, I didn't know how it happened. I wanted to take him home but... we both didn't know where to." A nod from Christian's side signalized Roel that the other knew what he was talking about. Somehow it enraged him that something like this could be so... accepted, especially by a friend.

"I... I ended up taking him home with me," he continued, hesitating then. The silence hung heavily between them. He didn't know how much he should tell and decided not to tell anything at all.

"I saw him... saw his arms. The scars. He talked something about a mirror and left, just out of nowhere. I called David. Helen told me about what had happened. I looked up... something and then I went into that little village he'd mentioned... oh God this sounds so weird. I didn't know why I thought he would be there but ultimately he was and..."

He buried his face in his hands, unable to continue speaking after this. What even was this place and why was he here, he asked himself again. He'd wanted to leave all the temporary things of his past behind to find security in a strange country, with strange but nice guys and a band on the rise. He'd thought he'd been lucky for once in a lifetime. But now he was at a strange hospital, worried to death about a man who seemed to deeply fucked up that there could be no help for him, and wanting nothing else than to help this very man because of a reason he couldn't even name.

"Listen..." Christian said after a while.

"I think there's a lot to explain about this. About him and everything. Are you alright? Do you want me to explain it to you?"

"I'm definitely far from alright but I want to know everything you can tell me," Roel replied firmly. His friend sighed and rested his elbows on his knees. He looked out of the window, to the sun that had almost risen completely. It was looking like rain.

"Okay so you know I'm the one who's known him the longest. It wasn't since the very beginning but longer than all the other guys. I also knew some people who'd known him before I did but that wasn't really of any importance back then. So one day these two guys come up to me, didn't know where they knew me from, but they know I played some keyboard and they want me to join their band. I agree because I have... well, lots of occasional jobs and an overall boring life. We rehearse a few times, turns out they'd already written some songs before. And that's how it developed. I really didn't notice that there was anything off at all because..." He laughed, not nervously but with some nostalgia.

"There's a reason why they called our genre Stoner Rock, let's put it like this." Roel resisted the urge to laugh. Of course. What had he expected? Christian, however, looked a lot more pensive now than before.

"We were still very young when that band was formed," he said, "but he was pretty much always a lot more adult then us others, just that we didn't notice it. But he's still got the same mindset than at age 20. We began to notice it when we grew up ourselves, when we had a five years older singer, when we started to seriously get into relationships and he remained alone, without a girlfriend, still drinking himself into oblivion at every possible occasion. We supposed there was some heavier stuff involved but we couldn't prove anything because he was very good at hiding things. He only expressed himself through his music and even that he never shared with us but with his first band. It wouldn't have fitted our band either. It could get... pretty intense."

Roel shuddered a little but had to agree. He'd read the music this very night and now he wondered why nobody had noticed anything earlier - this behaviour paired with those lyrics was bound to attract some worrying attention, or wasn't it?

"It pretty much went on like this. We settled down and had kids and wives and he didn't. We often met when we weren't touring but as I said, he was exceptionally good at hiding. Then one day we noticed that all our life didn't really fit to us anymore and we changed our identities, as you can see. We became more famous than we'd ever wished to become, and from that point on I think he kind of lost it. He was always a perfectionist and he set the bar way too high. We became even closer friends the more we toured but we also noticed that we were losing him. We talked a few times, he opened up just a little about the almost pointless things and then the thing with the mirror happened."

He shook his head, almost as if he could not believe it.

"We all shut our eyes from the truth I guess. We believed it was an accident because we wanted to. Because we just couldn't believe anything else. But Roel..." and he turned to him, "if I should give you one piece of advice..." His voice faded as he didn't know how to put his advice. Roel waited patiently.

"This has been going on for about twenty years now. We should have noticed early enough, but he just withdrew with the years and he won't let you help you. Since the mirror we completely lost him and it hurts to say but... I don't think that anything can be done anymore. If you want to take my advice to your heart, and I would recommend you did so, it would be to leave it. It's all wasted."

Roel said nothing, just turned away. He was desperate not believe but did his short experience really tell him anything else? No, his mind whispered, no, it's just as he said. You've seen it. You've heard it. Every move he makes tells you that it's over. Do you really think you could heal all of this - even only the little things he showed you?

But something in his mind, somehow, still kept him believing.


	5. 5

Christian was driving home, alone, after dropping Roel off at his place. He had managed to persuade him to go home and sleep or do anything besides sitting in the hospital corridor waiting for the endless surgery to be over at last. He'd seen that Roel had hope left, but his own hope - for their friend to survive this time - was crushed by the duration of the operation.

He wasn't exactly tired but still not too eager to invoke the wrath of the rest of the band by waking them up from sleep. Nevertheless somebody had to tell them. The fact that they'd slowly given up hope didn't mean they didn't care anymore, that was the first thing he'd noticed after getting the call from Roel earlier. He hoped his family still wasn't awake to see him now.

His mind was constantly crossed by things, changes in his life, that could maybe have saved his friend from whatever he was going through. Parents noticing. Teachers noticing. Friends noticing. Bandmates noticing. Himself noticing. He blamed himself indeed. He unlocked the door, didn't even remember how quickly he'd gotten here. He'd probably crossed a couple red lights on the way. Thinking too many other things while driving wasn't very good.

With his coat still on he dropped down on the couch and closed his eyes before he got up to make himself some coffee. He stopped, startled when his eldest daughter's voice came from the door.

"Good morning, dear," he said, putting on a smile.

"What are you doing up so early?"

"I couldn't sleep anymore when I saw you weren't there," she said, a little accusing.

"Do you know what Lea told me?"

"Your friend Lea?" he asked and took his cup, sat down at the table, inviting his daughter to join him. She wandered through the kitchen on her socks and climbed on the chair opposite him. Outside it started to rain while he waited for a story from Lea's life. He didn't know why it would be of any importance in this conversation.

"Lea's parents argue a lot and it makes her very sad, you know? And when she wakes up and her father is gone her mother always cries and gets very sad. I don't want mum to be sad." She looked at him with a little fear in her eyes and he smiled lightly, hugging her.

"I'm not gonna leave, dear," he said.

"I love your mum very much. I wouldn't leave her like this."

"But then why weren't you there?" She wanted her answers, just like her mother. She'd never allow him to just leave her unsatisfied.

"Somebody I know got very sick. So I had to go and check on him, and I didn't want to wake mum up," he finally said. His daughter looked at him concernedly.

"Who is it? Will he be okay?"

"I don't know if he'll be okay," he confessed.

"But I hope he will."

"Is it Ben?" she suddenly asked.

"Did he get sick again?"

"How did you know?" he asked with a lump in his throat forming.

"I heard how you two talked about it," she said guiltily and looked to the ground.

"I like him. I don't want him to be sick."

"Neither do I, dear." He kissed her forehead. She looked at him thoughtfully.

"Lea also got sick a while ago," she said.

"She told me it hurt her that her parents were arguing so much. Then Mrs. Schmidt came to us and asked why she was crying and Lea told her she was hurt and she wanted to hurt herself. Mrs. Schmidt sent her to Mrs. Sommerfeld so she must have been sick, right?"

"Yes, she must have been sick," he said sadly. Mrs. Sommerfeld, though, wasn't only the school nurse but also its counsellor, not that his daughter would know.

"I'm sure Mrs. Sommerfeld helped her, right?" 

"Yes, she did," the girl said and smiled.

"She's not sick anymore, she smiles a lot more. Ben will be okay as well." She said it with so much confidence that he could help but pat her head and nod, although he knew it was a lie. Then his daughter's face lit up.

"Should we surprise mum and make her breakfast?" she asked, beaming.

"I'm sure she'd love that," he answered and emptied his coffee cup to go on with his day.

\---

Roel, meanwhile, was finding no sleep behind closed curtains. Rain was drumming rhythmically onto his window so the noise additionally prevented him from sleeping. He closed his eyes and saw nothing but the picture of how they'd been here, side by side, at this very place, in this very place where he'd made the probably most shocking discovery of his life.

He'd seen lots of scars in his life, caused by fire, splinters, shards, falls, bike accidents, cigarette burns, a harsh hand or a knife that slid when cooking, but he'd always be able to tell selfharm scars apart from all the others. He'd refused to believe it, though, until it was too late. It was astonishing how little time 'until it was too late' could be.

Roel rolled off the bed and opened the door to his living room. Gray daylight flooded the room, it was bearable for eyes that were used to darkness. He wouldn't be able to sleep until he knew his friend would be okay. Or not, the cursed voice spooked through his head. He didn't even want to think about the possibility of knowing that his friend would never be okay again - would never have the possibility to be okay again. He couldn't wrap his head around the concept of death as it seemed unbelievable that somebody could just be wiped out, with everything that defined them, but he was sure he wouldn't be able to bear the thought that somebody could call him to tell him just that.

He paced up and down his small living room. He made a cup of black coffee and let it go cold. He tried to read but couldn't focus. He turned the TV on, listened to a terrible German talkshow with lots of fake beauties and fake, high pitched laugher. Turned the TV off because it angered him that careless things like these could be on TV when something like this happened the same time. He stared out of the window. A little ray of sun broke through the clouds and fell into his face like poison. He turned away from the window.

No matter what Christian had said, there had to be some hope left. He just had to find its hiding place and he couldn't do it alone. His mind was so certain of his friend's survival that it didn't even consider a different scenario, but beneath the thinking about what he could do to fix this, at least a little bit, the paralyzing fear lingered. What if he wouldn't make it?

Inbetween all those fears and plans Roel suddenly realized that he was into it deep. The realization came as a shock, for when he got into something deep it usually ended up being far too deep. People needed their freedom and spontaneousness, that was the one thing he'd learned from the past years. He thought about what he would feel like if anybody else was in the situation his friend was in right now. Would he care the same way? He felt that he would not, and even though this feeling was likely to be wrong as this situation wasn't something to be merely imagined he couldn't help but realize that the only people he'd have cared the same way were his two former partners. Now what did that mean?

Nothing, probably. When you loved somebody unconditionally it was a lot harder to imagine the pain that would come when they suddenly were gone. Right now it was not only an imagination, it was a friend in the ultimate presence of death. And if a rather new friend felt like this he could only thank God that nothing had ever happened to his beloved ones. Maybe that was because he'd prevented it from happening. Maybe that was why they were gone.

He drank from his cold coffee. It tasted terrible. He considered eating something but the second he did so he noticed that he would probably not be able to keep it in because the penetrating scent of blood still filled his mouth, no matter how hard he tried to push it away. He made an attempt to recall the previous evening, possibly in an attempt to understand why it had come to the happenings of the night. Was it all his fault? Should he have shut up about the scars? What was it that had made the other react that way?

It had been the first time he'd slept with somebody since his last relationship had ended, almost a year ago. Roel didn't know why he had, he used to never sleep with anybody that wasn't his partner, especially not with a friend that he'd be seeing every day after. Had it been because he was drunk? What if the other hadn't really wanted it, if it had caused him to do what he'd done?

But no, he'd been the one to suggest it in first place. Ot had he been lying, had it been because he'd been drunk, so much drunker than himself? The way he'd said it hadn't sounded as if he wanted it, more like he was obliged to do so. Like he needed it without wanting. And the way he'd acted - Roel had believed he might never have slept with someone before, but he felt that it wasn't quite this way. The man was a mystery and a dark one indeed. There were so many things within him that needed help.

Roel emptied his coffee, shuddering at the taste. He was even more restless than before. He couldn't just sit here and wait, although he'd asked the doctors to phone him as soon as there was anything to say about the other's condition he doubted they would. He wasn't related to him and they didn't have a different kind of relationship that would allow him to even be there.

This thought on his mind Roel left the apartment and made his way back to the hospital.

\---

The intensive care unit was even more terrible that the rest of the hospital. Next to the walls the doors here were white too, as were bed, chairs, devices, doctor smocks and most patients. The woman at the reception desk had described him the way - had it been so obvious that he was lost? - and now, at the ICU, he felt like an intruder.

His friend's body was hidden from his eyes by a thousand cables, infusions and other medical equipment Roel couldn't name. There was a man sitting by his bedside, he was tall but sat hunched and sunken. His hair was of a dark gray with few black strands which indicated its former colour. He was wearing a black coat, a black spot between all the whiteness that was unmistakeably the father. The moment Roel decided to turn away and leave he turned around, and even though he still could have left and pretended that he wasn't in the right place he unwillingly walked towards the bed. He wanted to see him.

A second later he wished he hadn't done it.

His friend was at least as pale as the room was. His unnatural thinness and hollow, sunken eyes and cheeks became visible in the bed that was much too large for him anyways. He looked lost, terribly lost and abused. The pattern of cuts seemed to jump at the beholder from his pale body. The blanket that covered his body up to his throat concealed, as Roel knew, most of them, but the visible ones looked terrible enough. If the monitor at the bedside hadn't shown a faint, weak heart rate he might as well have been dead already.

"Who are you?" came a quiet question. Roel shuddered at the instant for it was as if his friend had spoken despite his terrible state. He realized that the slightly deeper voice had to belong to the father and his heart calmed a little, yet still he was amazed at how similar the voices sounded.

"A friend," he replied as calmly as possible.

"I... I was the one who found him. I wanted to see if..." He left the sentence unfinished. The man nodded.

"I'm his father," he stated what Roel knew already. This seemed to be the end of their conversation. From the corner of his eye Roel examined the man whose stern, dark eyes were full of tears. His hands were shaking, resting on a blank spot on the covers, not daring to take his son's hand below. If you looked closer you could see that his entire body was shaken by quiet sobs. Roel couldn't hold his own silent tears back anymore.

As the father noticed this he looked up to him, closed his eyes for a second.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"If it weren't for you we'd be in a mortuary now." Shocked by his directness Roel could only nod and keep staring at his friend who looked as though he belonged in a mortuary already. He didn't want to crush his own hope but he just couldn't believe that this man would remain alive for another day. It felt as if a cold hand had reached into his chest and twisted all his entrails, squeezed the blood from his heart so that it clenched in pain and he was just about to rip it from his chest. Maybe he would welcome the moment his heart was gone, for then he wouldn't have to feel the guilt and pain anymore.


	6. 6

He was able to think again.

Still floating through the whiteness that was nothing on his skin, didn't feel like a substance nor warm nor cold, but his thoughts were alive again. Was this the light at the end of the tunnel they spoke of? If he'd just relived his own life it had not been far from the truth: numb, lifeless, without colour or straight thoughts.

He couldn't tell just for how long he had been there, robbed of all his senses, but he could tell it had been too long. If this was death, why did it take so long? If he should die now, why did the painful thoughts come back at him with all their force and why did the excruciating pain of every wound that had ever graced his skin shoot through his veins right now?

Perhaps this was what caused the whiteness; it wasn't actually Nothing but pain that burned brightly in his mind and nerves, let him revive every feeling of his entire life before it would grant him relief.

He was out of his body still and glad he was, for he could not ever bear to look at this empty crushed shell again, its colour tainted by everything he'd done. But why wasn't he gone already, why hadn't he stayed gone after everything had vanished?

It felt as if something tugged at the vacuum around, just in the place where his chest must have been. He was still blind to anything but the whiteness and nevertheless he felt the pull, as if somebody had driven a hook right into his heart to pull up his chest from the ground. The feeling of Nothingness was beginning to vanish as it grew cold around him. Drops of ice stung on his skin and he seemed to hang in the air while the light around blinded him.

Yet the bright glow grew fainter and fainter, was tainted by drops of darkness until his surroundings turned a light gray, a dark gray, a shade of black. Was this the end now?

Even though he was not conscious about whether or not he was inhabiting his body he performed a movement that felt like shutting his eyes. The hook in his chest continued dragging it upwards and the excruciating agony intensified with every second that seemed to be stretched into eternity.

Then something about the hook gave in, he felt it slipping out of his chest and fell into darker stages of whatever he was in. He kept falling and falling, not bothering to wonder where he would land because he knew this was the end. Then, he hit the ground, felt another pain that somehow was not the feeling if his back shattering. The crash drove the air out of his lungs, he gasped and tore his eyes open-

...and looked into whiteness that had silhouettes now, into a square of darkness and the face of a middle aged man with dark brown hair cut short, wearing a white coat and holding an infusion in his hand.

Still breathing heavily he sank back into his pillows to close his eyes again. His heart was hammering in his chest and an obnoxiously deafening beeping sound came from somewhere far too close to him. His mind was overcrowded with screaming voices from one second to another, but no matter what they said, the only thing that mattered was that he had not made it.

Once again he'd survived to make the life of even more people a living hell. This time there was no denying of what he'd done. If it was unlikely that an old, fragile mirror would crash down on him, making him land on his arm in the shards; how impossible would it be that he'd accidentally taken an entire package of sleeping pills, accidentally placed a good thirty cuts on his face and chest and accidentally fallen into a river after doing all of that?

He buried his face in his hands, pressed his knuckles onto his eyeballs until tiny supernovas exploded in front of his eyes, causing him to choke a cry in his throat. He felt as tired and yet as agitated as never before. How was he supposed to carry on now? How would he have been supposed to carry on anyways?

"Good morning, or shall I say evening?" he could hear a voice from far away. He wanted anything but to talk, but as he attempted to wave the speaker away he could feel something tugging at the flesh of his arm. He bit his tongue and, forced to open his eyes, looked at the infusion in his arm. His entire body seemed to be covered in them, seemed to be covered in little cables that connected him to electronic devices to which the obnoxious beeping machine belonged. Of course it was something to control his heart rate.

"I've asked for something to eat to be brought to you," the voice continued. It belonged to the doctor with the injection that he'd seen. He dropped his head to his shoulder, shut his eyes tightly, wanted the voice to stop more than almost anything. It caused him physical pain to only hear the sound of words that he should never hear again. Any tongue in this world was too graceful to be heard by him, to be stained by being put into his mouth.

The doctor continued talking to him, probably telling him about the condition of his health that he exactly knew about and couldn't wait to turn worse. Had his body held the necessary energy, he would have driven the injection - whatever it was - right into his spitefully beating heart, but he was too drained to even move his arms. What he could hear out from the doctor's endless words was severe blood loss, blood infusion, replacement of more than half of his blood. He felt sick. Had it not been enough for him to taint his friend whose name he didn't even dare think of? Even worse now, he was connected with a stranger who knew nothing about where his blood had gone, how it had been wasted.

"Stop," he whispered, not able to bear the talking voice any longer. His own voice was rough and croaked, more similar to a crow than a human. Maybe that was exactly what he was. A scarecrow. The phantom was a scarecrow, terrible, ugly, terrifying, torn. Nobody would touch a scarecrow.

"How?" was the only thing he brought out before his voice failed.

"Drink this," the doctor said, a head bend over him that shifted into two heads, then four heads, back into two. It was a different voice than the one giving medical lectures, it was warmer, what made it even more unbearable. Nevertheless he took the glass with his shaky fingers, failing to realize the strange hands that were helping him grasp it.

"How you came here, you mean?" the medical voice said. There was a quiet exchange between the two voices before the warm one continued.

"A Mr. van Helden made an emergency call," it said earnestly.

"You must be grateful, you owe him your life."

But to him it felt like a sucker punch right into his stomach that filled it with ice. He felt the sickness rising in his throat. How had he found him, how could he have known where he'd gone? There was no way of knowing this, of knowing anything. What would Roel do now? Was he gone already? What must the others think of him? His family? His friends? His band, he corrected himself, having cut every bond close to friendship years ago already. His heart was beating in his chest, every beat felt like a punch against the raw organ.

He downed the glass, grasped it tightly between his fingers, zoning out. The soothing voice became a distant, unintelligible whisper and he held onto the glass as if it was a life ring. His sight blurred away and blood seemed to run through his vision. His fingers cramped more and more as he thought of Roel and the others. He wouldn't cause them pain, just trouble. And trauma. He would cause Roel's trauma by forcing him to find the raw mess that he was, forcing him to ever look into these dead eyes.

The glass shattered in his hands and it was no glass, only fake plastic. A dreaming plastic moon has died... there was no light in the night sky in front of the window. Something slapped his arm, hard, he came back to his senses and stared into brown eyes that handed him a tablet that probably contained something to eat. He couldn't eat now, even if he wanted to. The pure look at every bit of his skin caused the sickness to return.

I hate you, the bitter voice in his head screamed. I hate you, useless whore. You've always known you were nothing. Remember those days? There was nothing you would succeed in and I already knew back then that you would never be able to do anything right. You shouldn't be existing, but you fail even the task of fixing this poor mistake of nature? Pathetic. Pathetic. Pathetic!

"Yes," he choked.

"Yes, yes, yes. Let me leave. Take this away from me. Let me go. Let me let it go." He couldn't hear the voices calling to him, gently at first, then rougher. 

The patient is not in a stable mental condition...

"Stop it! Let me go!" He was struggling against the arms that held him down. The door had opened, letting him behold a little spark of faint colour for a second before more silhouettes had streamed into the room to press him to the bed and talk to him in a manner that should be calming, always careful not to damage any of the things that connected him to the medical support his survival depended on. The thought seemed to calm him.

If nature had had its ways, you wouldn't be alive anymore.

He closed his eyes before the silhouettes, blinked so they would sharpen but they were gone already. The lump in his throat stopped the sickness from rising but provoked tears that, for the first time in the little while he was able to remember momentarily, were no tears of despair.

He almost felt like a teenager again, in the nights when emptiness had filled his heart, emptiness that could only be caused by endless grief which stemmed from nowhere. He mourned himself and the world and the paths it went, shaken by his emotions, face tearstained, it didn't seem to stop. All anger, desperation, fear was boiled together to produce this empty sadness. Tears, hot and wet, streamed down his face and he failed to hear the steps and the hand that slipped into his, the fingers that ran over his face and hair, the trusted voice that said his name again and again.

With nothing left in his soul he opened his eyes to the madness that awaited him as he looked into the eyes of the saviour he had destroyed.


	7. 7

"I'm sorry," he whispered, only those two words, over and over and over again while his head dropped to the side, eyes shut, painfully avoiding Roel's eyes.

"Look at me," Roel said. His voice, albeit attempting to be strong, remained soft and fragile.

"It... I won't tell you it's okay but... it's okay to fall. It's okay if you can't do it alone. What matters is that you don't fall any deeper, I'll..." He shook his head and stared down at the white covers, head bent in shame. He didn't know what to say, and his stupid babbling had probably only made it worse. How was he supposed to handle this if he didn't even know how he felt about it?

He noticed, belated, his friend's eyes that bored into the side of his head. He was looking at him now, his lashes cast a shadow over his eyes that coloured them black and didn't allow Roel to recognise their expression. As he tried to look at the other, his head immediately turned away again.

"Listen..." the other began, whispering voice quivering.

"You don't get me at all, do you? I'm not sorry for falling. I'm sorry for failing."

"How do you mean?" Roel asked. His eyes wandered over his friend, from his cut-covered neck and collar over his pale white cheeks; tried to pierce the other's eyes and find a sign that the words didn't mean what he feared they would.

"I fucked it up again!" The sudden scream made Roel jerk. The eyes he now stared into were still shining with the rage and the tears which stemmed from his earlier attack, desperation fueled the anger.

"I'm sorry," he said, softly again.

"I'm sorry I failed. I'm sorry I'm here. I'm sorry I did all of this to you."

"You did nothing to me," was the only thing he knew to reply. He dared not to breathe as he looked at his friend, afraid the other might never look back at him.

"I can't even begin explaining what I did to you," he croaked. The light shiver that had been affecting his body was growing into a steady shaking, especially of his hands.

"You did nothing," Roel repeated, receiving a dry, bitter laughter.

"I bothered you. I tainted you. I made you look at me and made you find me. It's all my failure. If I hadn't been so endlessly stupid and useless your life would still be normal, and I would be wiped from it, just as you deserve to."

"Don't say that!" Roel whispered in horror. How could the other think that way? How could he talk about himself that way? Didn't he see just how... how different everything was? Roel was at loss of words again, which didn't seem to be the same for the other.

"Don't you see what I've done already?" he asked. The bitterness in his voice was slowly turning to hate.

"I see the way you look at me. It shows me that you've started caring, and it's so wrong, can't you see? Why should somebody like you waste their being on caring about somebody like me? Tell me, would the soldier care about the safety of the grenade that tears him apart? Would he, bleeding from the wounds it carved into his flesh, try to fix it and put it back into it's original, unharmed form that it was never supposed to hold?"

"He would not," Roel replied.

"But this is not the point. Tell me, if that grenade had consciousness, wouldn't it inevitably turn away all this destruction?"

"You still don't understand," said the other.

"I am like a grenade. Bound to self-destruct as soon as the outer impacts have let it come so far. Bound to destroy everything in its way."

"You haven't destroyed anything." Roel shook his head, but his desperation was growing. He wasn't helping and it was tearing him apart. Had their places been exchanged, he was sure the other would have had just the words to help and encourage him. But his words were being twisted in his mouth and shaken in his brain until he didn't know what was right and what was wrong to say.

"I've destroyed you and so many more," his friend said, regarding him with a look of utter sadness.

"But I even failed the task of redeeming you. I don't know what else to do." Again he looked away, sounding so infinitely broken that it crushed something within Roel. He felt bound to reach out for the icy hand beneath the covers, placed it on top of them and rested his own palm atop of it. The other made a small attempt to refuse but didn't seem to have the strength left.

"See," he whispered roughly instead, "that's it. You shouldn't be touching me. You shouldn't even be here with me. Every second next to me destroys your spirit. I'm a fucking black hole that's gonna suck out your life and still you stay, why do you stay?"

"You need me," was the only thing Roel said.

"But you need to get away," he whispered weakly.

"What do I need people for? To fuck me out of my mind, hurt me and put me into my place. And you're not one of those people, no. The way you treat me is so wrong, again, everything is wrong! Why did I ever let this happen, why?"

Roel's fingers closed around the other's hand subconsciously. Slowly he was beginning to understand the way the other had acted, even though it shook his foundations to hear all those words - that must have bottled up there for years - bursting out of his friend's mouth. It hurt him to hear this, see this, have to feel this. He wanted nothing but to turn his back on this room and leave it behind for all eternity, but something that he couldn't grasp prevented him from doing just that.

"That's why you need me," he finally answered.

"Let me help you, please."

"How could you help me without ending up needing help yourself? You've already done the things that you people regard as right but that are just wrong when it comes to me. I shouldn't be helped. I should be left in peace."

"For what then?" Rage overcame Roel.

"For this to happen again? For you to continue doing all these things, suffering?"

"It wouldn't have happened if you'd stayed out of it!" the other man cried.

"Don't you see what's going on here? You've been treating me so terribly right since I've met you, but this isn't how to handle me! To me you don't speak in a normal tone, you speak harshly. You're not supposed to care about me or give a fuck about what's happening. That's what the others have understood, what every single person in this whole world has understood, except for you! Get it into your brain: I'm not one to care about!"

The heart rate on the monitor was increasing drastically. Again the beeping started and rang in Roel's ears while his friend was struggling to catch his breath.

"Don't you see what you're talking?" Roel exclaimed as to overtone the loud sound.

"That's the thing that's wrong here: the way you view yourself! I beg you, let me help you!"

"You'd be better off without me!"

"I'd be completely off without you and it wouldn't be good!"

"See?" The scream sounded almost painful to Roel's ears. His friend's eyes were torn wide open in rage and despair.

"That's how I've destroyed you! The moment you start giving a single fuck about my person is the moment your life goes down the drain because you devour yourself in guilt for not being able to fix me but how do you want to fix something that's never been whole in first place? Leave, please, Roel, leave. Stop caring. Forget me. It shouldn't be so hard. Look at yourself, you can't even bring yourself to pronounce my name."

"Don't say things like this," Roel begged again. His fingers enclosed the other's almost painfully, but he tore his hand away and weakly pushed Roel's away.

"Leave!" the other insisted.

"Leave. Go. Forget me. I'm quitting. Tell the others I'm quitting and goodbye, see you never, leave!"

"At least give me a chance to prove my point to you," Roel said, in a final attempt at his friend's form of humour. His chest felt numb where it had painfully burned seconds ago.

"We all know how this is going to end," the other said again.

"As soon as I'm out of here I'll be gone forever. I'm gonna wrap a rope around my neck, slid those poor veins or shoot an overdose of heroin right up my arm and then you'll be rid of me, no more problems. Tell the others now, I'm gone. Stop trying to fix me. You'll end up hurting yourself."

Roel wanted to say something but all the other gave him was a weak "Leave." repeated over and over again. As he stumbled down the hospital floor, in a numb trance whole trying to contemplate what he'd just heard, tears that he couldn't even feel streamed down his face. Meanwhile the other had sunken down into his pillows, a new wave of hate and anger washing over him. He waited for it to get carried away and, at the same time, knew that this was the day that had cut the ropes.


	8. 8

He was alone.

After the torture of the everlasting monitors had dragged on for what must have been nearly a week he'd been released from the ICU, to spend another time (twice as long?) at a normal station of the hospital. His days had been spent sleeping, waking, staring at the walls, being forced to eat as he wouldn't do it himself and pretending to sleep whenever his father came in.

His father had been the only one to visit him, and he doubted the man really cared about his wellbeing. He probably just blamed himself for failing in raising his son. Well done, well done.

He'd barely made it home.

The blinds were shut, outside autumn was slowly fading into winter. How long had it been since he'd come home? He'd lost count of the date, was living in his own, poor world while the world around him kept on turning. What might the other guys be doing? Were they turning his final drafts into full songs by now, to continue doing what they loved? He dearly hoped so.

There would be no more songs for him to write, nor would there be another dawn to chase away the night of his mind. He didn't know why he continued breathing, too weak to even get up.

His eyes blinked blindly, trying to focus on a point in the sea of cream coloured ceiling. They were burning from the tears he'd cried that now refused to fall. His limbs were heavy and numb, the weight that he clearly remembered hovering above his chest to crush it had spread through his entire body, multiplying in the process. And he was tired. God, he was so tired, but sleep was a thing too sweet and blissful to hope for.

Whenever he closed his eyes he would be forced to see the flashing images of the phantom in the mirror. One second it would stare back at him to be crushed the next, without him even making a movement. The scenes changed rapidly without flowing into each other. Every picture seemed to grow more horrifying, and between them he could always make out the face of his saviour so far away, the saviour he didn't deserve and had rightfully pushed away.

The phone rang again in the living room. He wondered who might be calling him. He sincerely wished it wasn't Roel.

His friend hadn't once visited him after he'd pushed him away, and his logical side thanked every available entity for that. The selfish stupidity that threatened to take over occasionally was being suppressed, and nevertheless he had to clench his fists with strength his body didn't even hold to resist the overwhelming urge to just be held. Wrapping his covers closer around him he continued staring at the blanket. Would it be of any use calling one of the men over to him? The exhaustion would likely kill him, but it wasn't that they would notice if he could take it roughly or not. They would just do him, no matter what.

He wanted to reach for the telephone, reject the call and dial a random number of the ones he'd choose from but found himself unable to get up. The telephone fell silent, his body continued being dragged down by the numbness. He wanted to feel just anything, even if it was just the pain of literally being fucked to death. Maybe this was the reason why he couldn't seriously consider sleeping with a woman. He couldn't take the thought of being the one in control. Which brought him back to the cursed memories of this cursed night.

Why had Roel been different from the others? Why hadn't he known how to do it right? The question had been spooking through his mind every single day since it had happened and still he couldn't answer it. Fact was that his disgusting selfishness didn't want anybody to hold him. It wanted Roel to hold him. Again. Knowing he would break him apart. Again.

His fingers closed around his arm where the scars were, sharp fingernails pressed into the heaving skin. It didn't particularly hurt. It felt good. Just to feel again.

The telephone was ringing. Again. He waited for it to end. Again. But unlike all the other times, his voicemail answered before the caller hung up, knowing that he would not answer the call. Hearing this voice again felt like a bang in his chest.

\---

It was breaking apart.

Roel was home at his temporary apartment, home way too early after a rehearsal that was more of an hour of torment. None of the four were focused, they played song drafts with one guitar and without the one who'd created those drafts. Christian had suggested a break. David had put his gear into a corner, walked out and driven home, all without a single word.

Roel himself couldn't say that he was taking it well. Drumming was a way of taking out all his emotions on his drums, but he would have to smash multiple drum kits to compensate these emotions to a point where they would become bearable.

He still blamed himself for not going back to the hospital. He didn't know if the others had done so but he couldn't take the fact that he had left his friend alone. If only the hospital staff had done anything, had forced him into according treatment that he couldn't be convinced to get...

"Fuck!" he shouted out loud, slamming his fist onto the couch table that made a sound dangerously close to cracking. Vibrations went through the table, slowly transferring onto his hands that rested on it. They ran through his skin like electricity.

He'd been so wrong in leaving. Never, not even after actual convincing arguments from his friend's side - that frankly didn't exist - should he have done this. Could he ever do anything right? He'd lost people for being too caring, for pushing them when they just needed rest. Would he lose his friend now because he had not been pushy enough? The other had told him not to help, to stay away in order not to be hurt. Maybe something in his subconscious had made him leave, believing that it would actually be good for him to leave this damage behind.

Sometimes he cursed the depths of his mind, especially now that he had realized that the only thing breaking him apart was staying away from his friend. It caused him pain to imagine him in his current situation and not have helped him, not to help him.

Instantly hoping it was not too late already he grabbed for the phone with shaky fingers and dialled the number.

\---

"It's me."

No.

He couldn't believe that Roel had, after all the things that had happened, returned to him. He couldn't believe how the other could have been so endlessly stupid. The selfishness within him screamed at him to pick up after all, to talk to the other man, to accept whatever offer he had to make, but he also realized just how disgusting the mere imagination of this was. He couldn't allow himself to break this man apart.

"I wanted to talk to you. Apologise. I've thought... I've been thinking about... things. You. Us. I should never have left. I should've known better. I'm sorry."

No, Roel, no, his lips formed while his voice kept failing him. You've done the right thing. Keep it this way. For your own sake.

"I've been thinking, as I said, and I believe I can... maybe not understand you, but see some of your reasons. Maybe. As I said. Possibly. All I ask of you is that you let me in."

How could anyone ever understand? One thing was clear: if Roel had truly understood he would have stayed away from the toxicity of this mind.

"If you're listening to this, and I pray to God you will be listening at some point, I wanted to tell you... goddamnit why is this so hard to put into words?"

Roel had almost screamed the final words. He shut his eyes, trying to blend out the pain in the other's voice.

"I was caught off guard. I was so shocked, I openly admit, by all your - you have to say misconceptions about yourself that I couldn't even say anything against them. But they're all wrong. You're... you're so wonderful. Beautiful. All I ask of you is to let me stay by your side, just a little time. It's not caring about you that's breaking me apart. It's caring about you and seeing you like this. Caring and not being able to do anything."

A short chuckle, nervous.

"I'm losing myself here. Please, let me know if you give me this chance. Please." He hesitated.

"I need you," he whispered then and hung up quickly. He hadn't realized his eyes burning stronger again. Shoving his head underneath the pillow he screamed silently, without noticing his voice gaining strength until he was screaming out loud in unfathomable pain. It was too late to do anything now, he had to realise. Roel cared about him. Roel cared about him. The worst thing was that a part of him craved nothing more than to accept this, to be devoured and fulfilled by the other's presence. No fibre of his body believed that Roel could heal him. But all he wanted was to see him one final time. To spend his final minutes in his arms. And he didn't even know why.

Finally, as his screams had ceased, he managed to move again. He wasn't frozen anymore, even though his body still moved like a robot. The despised part of him was still screaming. He needed Roel like the air to breathe. But the number he dialled when he picked up the phone with fingers that could barely hold it wasn't the one of his friend.

"Same place?" greeted him the voice of a friendly authority that could have been a mayor or principal - he didn't know anything about the other's profession.

"Same place," he confirmed, begging that his breaking voice would go unnoticed. It did.

"As soon as I can manage," the other huffed and ended the call. He shut his eyes, pressing the telephone to his ear for longer than necessary. He didn't know how to kill the time that would inevitably have to pass now. And somehow he managed to end up right in front of the mirror again.

It was a deja vu. The scene, the room around him was blended out, it didn't matter whether it was a dirty venue bathroom or his own, small one. What mattered was the phantom that kept on cruelly mocking him through time and space, wherever he went.

Its eyes, without the smallest spark of life in them, were sunken as deep as his cheeks in the gaunt face. The skin around the eyes that should have been reddened had faded to black, blended into the dark circles beneath his eyes. His body was shaking. His skin was of an abnormal chalk white colour. He stared the phantom into the eyes, feeling the same anger and panic spreading through him. That day he had shattered the mirror with all his strength. The strength he now had left wasn't even enough to take it off the wall.

"I hate you," he whispered, and whispered it without emotions. The blade caressed his skin again. It began to burn where the cold steel kissed it. Another moment of deja vu. The pain was the first thing to tear through all the horrible numbness and instantly he could feel his body screaming, craving more, more and more. How hard could it be to do it just now? He was alone, nobody would come to supposedly help him - nobody would come to drag him back. Nobody.

But as his hand, increasingly shaking, lingered above the thin, scarred wrist that was already overrun by small streams of blood from his arm, he stared at himself once again in the mirror. Thought of Roel's words. It's not caring about you that's breaking me apart. It's caring about you and seeing you like this. Caring and not being able to do anything. He gritted his teeth, trying to turn his eyes away from the cold hatred in the phantom's eyes. I need you.

And, for a split second but as clearly as if it stood right in front of him, he saw his reflection. Not a phantom, the picture of the man he might have been if his life had been created rightfully. The man that would go off stage in an adrenaline rush without having a lead rock crushing down on his chest ten minutes later. The man who made love to people instead of having them degrade him. The man that would not have destroyed Roel. He saw the picture in the mirror and thought of Roel.

Roel. The only one who hadn't given up, as much as he hated it. The only one who could try and make him right. The only one who could, possibly, make him into the man that could truly love him.

The blade dropped into the sink as he turned his eyes away from the returning phantom, still willing and about to continue the fool's parade it put into his mind. He left it behind as he dialled the number, finally.

"I need you. I do."


	9. 9

Roel didn't say a word as he entered upon the door being opened from within. He wasn't wearing a coat nor were his shoes tied, so hastily he'd left the house as he'd received the call. He couldn't express the relief he'd felt the second he'd heard that voice again, as broken as it sounded. Deep within his mind the fear had wrapped itself around a part of his brain, always creeping further through his body. It hadn't seized him instantly as the call hadn't been picked up. It had begun nestling to the outer walls of his veins and nerves, melting into his overall feeling like a natural part of it.

"I need you. I do." Five words and he'd been in his car, starting up the engine and driving to the other's apartment at a speed that endangered roughly seventy lives in the course of the entire drive. He knew the address and thanked God that he did. He also thanked every imaginable entity there was as he stood in the house, right before the sight of his friend distracted him from whatever entities there might be.

The other was a mess and it was so visible that it pained Roel. His back was pressed against the white tiles of the bathroom floor and he didn't look up to Roel, head buried between his knees that were pulled to his chest. The black sweater he was wearing had been pulled over his hands. The arms were wrapped around his legs and he was shaking violently, although there was no sobbing to be heard. The room was white, almost as if it had been either cleaned freshly or never used before. The exception was the sink, smeared with red stripes. A small, shiny object had been dropped into it.

"I'm here," was the first thing he said, kneeling down next to the other.

"Can you hear me, Ben? I'm here." As he provoked no reaction he touched his friend's shoulder, shaking him very gently. He shook his head at the instant, showing Roel that he had, in fact, noticed him, but did not want to look at him. Roel kept his hand on the other's shoulder.

"I'm here," he repeated. Since the failed conversation in the hospital he'd thought a lot. He didn't have a "plan" on how to lead this conversation now but he felt what was the right thing to do. He didn't push his friend with further touch until the other had calmed down a little. Still shaking he dared a look upon the edge of his knees, withdrawing his head in shame as jos gaze fell on Roel.

"Look at me," he said calmly.

"Please."

His eyes were even more broken than his voice. They were of a beautiful colour and had always been, although they'd never really held light within, let alone joy. Today they were not only dark and dull but dead, simply dead. He caught himself thinking that nothing could revive those eyes before he reminded himself that this was why he was here now. That this was what kept him together.

"I shouldn't have asked you to come," were the first words Ben whispered.

"But you did," Roel said, "and it was the right thing to do."

"But you can't save me. It's selfish to have you come here just to..." His voice faded and it filled Roel with discomfort.

"Just to... what?" he asked softly, yet in a tone that demanded an answer.

"How should I tell you?" the other exclaimed.

"Just say it. Speak it out. Shout it if you need. I promise I'll be here." As a reassurance he strengthened his grip on his arm a little, not failing to notice the flinch.

"It's terribly selfish to have you come here just for your face to be the last thing I see - fuck!" He put his hands over his face, turned away. Roel's heart began beating fast, the fear that had dug its way through his body was taking hold.

"Did you do anything?" he whispered, so quietly that it could not have been heard had the room not been deadly silent.

"No, no, I didn't. But that's the thing, I wish I had! There's nothing I wish more! There's nothing I want more than to finally erase this thing that I am from this beautiful world, wash the stain from its face. I would leave a crimson scar but it would be nothing compared to the shame of being here on earth, I want to destroy it, I want to make sure the phantom remains silent, I want to make sure I never see it again!" Having talked himself into something that was close to rage - despite his obvious exhaustion - he dropped his hands and shook his head, falling silent.

"You... I should blame you. Even though it's my fault. Let me explain. I was alone. Nobody could have stopped me this time, but I had to listen to your voice and remember it and why did you leave that message? Because something about my fucked up self has manipulated you in a way that makes you care so much about something that's bound to destroy the entirety of you, sooner or later! The only reason why I'm still here to break you apart is that I don't want you to break apart do you realize how fucked up that is?"

He hiccuped, coughed, gasped for air. His chest was heaving like crazy, as if he was drowning without air. Roel slid a little closer to him.

"Listen now," he said and it took a lot to keep his voice strong.

"It's as I said. No matter what you believe you're not breaking me apart. I'd never thought I'd ever say something even remotely close to this but... I need you. As much as you need me now. I've failed to realise it for so long although it's been building up since the day we met."

"Isn't that ironic?" The laugh was almost hysteric.

"I need you because something deep within me likes to believe I could be fixed by someone like you, no, by you in particular. Why would you need me? Do you need something to fix?"

"I don't need something to fix," Roel explained, as gently as patiently.

"I need you. You alone. Not because you are broken, but because you are you. And because I need you I don't want you to be broken."

"Isn't it weird?" Ben whispered without coming back to Roel's words.

"I was standing here... right here..." He pointed at a perfectly clean, white spot at the bathroom floor next to them. Only by looking at him Roel could tell that these were the seconds he was touching rock bottom. Only one more minute and he'd have crashed down mercilessly, shattered into a thousand pieces. His walls were breaking down.

"The phantom. My torment. The phantom that's me and hates me over everything else. The reason why. And I was back in front of that mirror, I've never been more ready before, but then I... I remembered your words." Again he laughed hysterically, in a way that almost scared Roel. His eyes were distant and off, almost insane.

"And you know what I saw? I saw me, I mean, what I could have been. Could be. Would be. If I wasn't the phantom. And the thought occurred to me that it could be you, you to fix me, just you. My selfish, fucked part clung to the hope that this distorted insanity could be true even though I'd never felt anything like it before, not once in my life and that's why I'm here! That's why I'm still here, do you realise how fucked that is? A hope that's insanity and could never be reality!" His whispers had almost turned into screams. Roel's fingers sank in his flesh without him realising. The fear had changed. He feared the other had gone utterly insane now.

"Can you explain this? Can you explain why this fucked up hope is what kept me going here? Tell me, tell me, tell-"

"You've never experienced it," Roel whispered without breathing.

"I have. I know what it feels like. Craving somebody else like crazy. Needing somebody as if they were the air to breathe. That's what it does to you. And it rightfully does so."

Ben was looking at him. The shine of madness had given way to emptiness again, but Roel couldn't look away. It had been so close to him all the time, right in front of his eyes. The other's expression showed him that he'd understood what Roel was talking about, yet he could not read his expression.

"Let me help you," he finally asked again. He didn't find the courage to come any closer.

"Just hold me," the other whispered. All the previous rage had gone from his voice and made way to this heartbreaking emptiness that seemed to have taken hold of his entire body. Roel knew that it came with unspeakable pain, for je experienced it as the other did. He didn't say anything, just put his arms around him. That was when he broke.

Roel was certain he'd never experience as much pain again as he experienced the following minutes. With every word that the other's soul bled there was another nail being driven right into his chest. Every confession robbed him of his breath anew. He felt as if he was breaking, too. What kept him together was holding onto the terribly fragile body in his arms, asking himself just how much pain and hate a person could endure in a lifetime. But despite all this pain that came from those scattered, partially senseless fragments of the other's soul he remained there without moving, wanting to ease this pain even more desperately with every tear of either of them that stained his shirt.

When the doorbell suddenly rang, Ben froze in his arms. He'd wrapped his own arms around Roel's torso and pressed close to the other now, shivering from the tears that kept streaming on his face. He was holding onto Roel as tightly as Roel was holding onto him.

"Don't open," he begged.

"Don't leave."

"I'll never leave," Roel whispered with his teared-up voice and rested his head on top of the reddish hair. And so they stayed, entangled, holding on for their dear lives for as long as it took until they could breathe again.


	10. Epilogue

Blood was running down his body without a source to spring from. He was completely alone in darkness that wasn't quite darkness, just emptiness, except that it wasn't quite empty. The floor he stood upon seemed to swallow him, yet his feet were hovering about an inch above it, ruthlessly drawn into the abyss that was, despite everything, material.

The space around him was dimly lit by a number of candles, aligned into a form his eyes couldn't quite catch due to the lights blurring. There was silence, except for a sweeping breeze which caused the candles to flicker, yet did not possess enough force to extinguish them. It was the same breeze that brought coldness onto his skin. The blood was fresh and heated and liquid on his bare skin, making his body freeze.

Breathing could be heard somewhere in the darkness. Beyond the illuminated space there lay patches drenched in black. Somebody, something, was there, the presence heavily pressed down on his chest and took his breath away with dread.

Steps approached him slowly and the nameless fear grasped for his heart and his lungs. The closer the sounds came the more it paralysed him, yet even if he had been mobile he could not have moved away from his spot, arms tied to something above his head, behind his back.

"You know you'll never escape me," he heard a croaked whisper that, in its rough basics, sounded exactly like his voice. He winced, trying to turn away in a futile attempt. His lungs cramped.

The steps were very close now, and without even gazing into its direction he knew that the phantom had stepped out of the shadow. With its arrival the breeze had calmed down and made way to a cold that almost froze the blood on his skin to crimson ice.

"Even now you're still coming back to this place." The phantom was standing right before him now. Its steps had ceased. Ice cold, thin fingers reached out for his chin and forced it into its direction. Breathing heavily he struggled to keep his eyes closed, eventually succumbing to his own gaze that pierced his eyelids from without.

"You're nothing without me, am I right? I am you and you are me. I am what you are and always will be supposed to be. And no so-called love will ever melt our bond. You'll always be coming back to me, me, your creator and original of whom you are nothing but a badly drawn picture."

As their gazes met now his breathing, previously heavy, ceased completely. He was facing the same eyes that were sure to always push him over the edge again. He was unsafe on his feet every second of his life, but when the times would come at which he would hang at the edge of an abyss he would always be dragged to this place that gave him the final thrust.

He had no strength to reply to the phantom's words.

Its fingers were claws, nails painfully sharp. They wrapped around his neck coldly now, ripping open the tender skin that covered it. The blood, he now realized, was streaming from his eyes as bloody tears.

The phantom stepped away as his head fell to the side. It withdrew into its shadowy hiding place and left him hanging, its final words and the pain it inflicted upon him always echoing through the silence.

You're a copy of what you are supposed to be. The day will come when you are finally led back to your destination...

\---

He woke up in sweat and tears, a silent scream that didn't make it over his lips lingering on his tongue.

When he had begun moving restlessly minutes ago, a light kick of his feet had woken Roel. Due to his restlessness the other man had not dared to touch him, but as his eyes opened suddenly, his face pressed into the pillow and his fingers digging into the mattress, Roel put both arms around the slender body that was still quivering.

He could feel Ben slowly calming down. His grip on the mattress loosened and he turned his head sideways to breathe freely while pushing closer to Roel so that his lover could hold him tight. The look with which he beheld the silhouette in his arms was gentle and loving. A pale moon shone onto Ben's pale skin, catching a mere patch of it before the man fully moved into Roel's shadow.

With one hand Roel ran through the other's hair that was tangled by his nightly movements. A thick strand of it fell over Ben's shoulder and touched Roel's skin. His other hand caressed the back of his beloved until the shiver had left it.

Ben turned around with a murmur on his lips that Roel couldn't understand, to rest his forehead upon his lover's collarbone. Despite the unspoken dread that lingered in the other's chest it felt good, almost peaceful, to lie there, skin on skin, in silent custody.

Two months had passed since Roel had received access to the other's deepest thoughts. Without this night it would not have taken long until either of them would have broken apart, but in the end they had saved each other.

Roel knew it was pointless to ask if Ben was okay. He knew as well as him that he wasn't, and he also knew that, after all these years, he would never be okay again. There would always be this shadow, the demons of his past that had found a home in his own mind and spoke with his voice. The phantom.

Most people had their past demons sticking in their head as dreadful memories, still causing them hurt but not necessarily able to ever revive and break out, at least not without a foreign force aiding them. For Roel's lover it was different: his demon was a part of his own mind, carefully caged beyond bars that shut him from reality. But if he was not cautious, especially in these early days, it would easily break out again and drag him back to the hell the had gone through for more than half of his life.

Both of Roel's hands were now buried in Ben's hair. He could feel the other heart beating against his chest, a certain sign that he was still recovering from whatever horror that had temporarily taken over his mind. He was still adjusting the position of his head until his cheek rested on Roel's skin, allowing him to come so close to his lover that their figures melted into one without robbing him of the ability to breathe. Roel's fingers kept running over his back, with short touches of other areas of his skin he was silently asking for custody to touch all of him. Ben granted it.

It wasn't often that he would feel comfortable having Roel touch all his scars. Perhaps, in this second, it gave him solace to be gently touched by his lover.

Roel had never paid the scars special negative attention, nor had he refused against the wish to turn off the lights when Ben would join him in bed. It was one of the many unwritten rules of living with and loving that man that Roel always kept.

There were many scars on Ben's body. Some of the most recent wounds were still fading into scars, joining the many prominent, thick ones that protruded from his arms particularly. There was a particularly large and long scar that dragged across his collar, surrounded by many smaller ones. His wrists would feel swollen when Roel touched him there, which he barely ever did. Thin, yet long scars were spread across his legs and arms, the small scars on the latter nearly vanished between the each roughly ten large ones that were on his lower arms. On some patches of skin it would look as if there was a deepening permanently engraved into the skin, some of the scars were white and only visible when the skin was being stretched. Some were not to be seen, but felt clearly, and some were painfully prominent.

Each of the scars had its own story to tell, and together they formed a part of Ben's story. Roel knew that it was not only his body that told his story. His mind was scarred even deeper, its wound took longer to fade into scars and were thus reopened more frequently. Roel also knew that it did not stand in his might to heal these inner wounds. It did not stand in the might of a therapist either, they all were just easing the process. A process that would take years from now. But Roel did not plan on leaving his lover's side.

He thought of the band as Ben's breathing calmed down. Temporarily laid on ice they were already scheduling their next recording sessions without announcing a tour. Ben had not, as he had firstly done, withdrawn from the band or music at all. Even though Roel would have understood if he had he was, admittedly, glad that he had not. They would get back into it soon, even though their relationship remained hesitant. They would all need to talk someday, but it had time.

Time passed, and Roel could slowly feel Benni falling back to sleep in his arms. He took some tightness away from his arms around his lover and buried his face in his hair. His thumb remained on Ben's face, softly caressing it after he'd pressed a kiss to the other's forehead. He smiled.

Half a year ago he wouldn't have dared to dream of ever being able to feel such peace again. Three months ago he wouldn't have dared to dream of anything concerning him, praying for his beloved's naked life day and night. Tonight he was here. Where would he be in the future? He couldn't tell. The road would be rocky an scattered with abysses that dared to drag them down. The phantom wasn't gone. But he was here to catch his lover, to make sure that past things would never reoccur.

To need someone like you need the air to breathe...

Roel breathed in his lover's scent, inhaled it deeply before he rested his head atop of the other's. Still feeling Ben's steady heartbeat he felt sleep slowly overcoming him again until he finally slipped into it. The pale moon shone down on the pair. Out on the streets the sounds of traffic blended into the nightly silence. An owl cried somewhere in the distance, unable to disturb the small but perfect peace they had in this moment.

~ fin. ~


End file.
